For continued improvements and maximum operating frequency for gallium arsenide integrated circuits, heterojunction bipolar transistors must be scaled down to less than parasitic capacitances. Reducing the size of the heterojunction bipolar transistor results in misalignment problems of the emitter contact. These misalignment problems were tolerated in conventional heterojunction bipolar transistors, but result in shorting between the emitter and the base as the transistor size decreases. Therefore, it is desirable to raise the process yield of a scaled down planar heterojunction bipolar transistor by overcoming the shorting between emitter and base due to misalignment.